Ask Carroll

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daryl
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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by daryl » Tue Oct 29, 2013 9:15 am

The more it's talked about around the home it seems to me, the more it likes to rear its ugly head. Compare it to cigarettes, no boxes of them, no ash trays, no adverts whooska gone. Out of mind.

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steve shearer
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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by steve shearer » Tue Oct 29, 2013 9:27 am

Hi Nick, sorry if this is covered in the book or was explored in the sixty minutes story.

I guess the big glaring question about all this is : Why now?
It would seem reasonable to assume you knew about this for a long time, and not just Tom but probably a whole bunch of other pro surfers.
Why wait until now, at the twilight of Toms career, perhaps at the twilight of your own career as a surf journo?

You were Editor of Tracks and Surfing and a head honcho at Surfing Life. You were one of the head gatekeepers of the Surf Media. This was all happening on your watch.

As a senior, arguably the pre-eminent surf journalist, didn't you have a responsibility to discuss it then? To bring these stories into the public eye and bring some transparency and accountability into this whole murky world of Pro Surfing.

That whole culture of secrecy and looking the other way that was fostered in the surf media allowed a pretty toxic drug culture to flourish, and there were victims who lost a whole lot more than Tom did.
Do you feel any sense of being compromised by not reporting on this? By, in effect, sheltering Tom from the full consequences of having his drug addiction revealed.

Tom got his million dollar contract from Quiksilver. Herro ended up a basket case after a couple of years being exposed to the drug culture that was flourishing around the tour.
It's not that hard to imagine a very, very different world and outcome for a lot of people if that drug culture had been exposed to the sunlight of some open and honest reporting at the time. Big changes would have had to have been made, at a much earlier time.

It's all quite surreal to be honest. Everyone knew Andy was spiralling out of control on drugs and yet the surf media was hamstrung…..even right up to his death there was zero transparency on what was happening. Why?
If you knew, why did you hold it back?

Everyone knew Hedgey was losing the plot on alcohol and yet, in this very forum you soft pedalled it and obfuscated that there was any kind of problem.
Obviously you were trying to protect these surfers from having to face any kind of public accountability for their issues but what happened to change your mind?

Andy wanted to come clean and tell his story but it seems no-one in the surf media was able or allowed to tell his story. Why?

These aren't easy questions, but now the whole thing is out in the open, it seems ridiculous to pussy-foot around these issues any longer.

over to you.
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daryl
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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by daryl » Tue Oct 29, 2013 9:45 am


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tootr
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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by tootr » Tue Oct 29, 2013 12:24 pm

Rockin' Ron wrote:
And, probably more importantly, was Liz flirty?
And where was Ray Martins' hair in all of this ?

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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by Nick Carroll » Tue Oct 29, 2013 2:27 pm

hey shearer

I do write a bit about this in the book.

I can't help your judgements on this or anyone else's for that matter, I know with stuff like this you can only write then sorta hand it over, even though said judgements do kind of disgust me, like try walking in the shoes first. Judgement is the enemy of recovery. But hopefully it'll be pretty clear to anyone who reads that book just why I would not have publicly busted out my little brother as a drug user. (I mean for fcuk's sake, who would?)

The truth was that at the time we were all just a bunch of reckless young men who'd dived into a culture with no adult supervision whatsoever, who pretty much did what the hell we wanted, whose cultural heroes were pretty much all drug users and hell raisers, who wholeheartedly rejected what we felt was "dangerous" drug use (ie heroin), but who went hell for leather on pretty much everything else, and frankly, saw very little wrong with it at all.

I didn't see the big dangers until a fair bit later on with Tom as he began his solitary trip down the road to hell. I tried to protect him privately as everything in our twinned lives had always pushed me to do. Sometimes I could and sometimes I couldn't. Only when he'd dived into the worst depths did I question it all, what had I been protecting, what sort of farce my journalistic life had turned into. Oddly enough, in the end I was able to help him more through my research skills and writerly imagination etc than in any other way.

Like I said, fcuk! I do not want to have to re work all this shit here, read the book.

It was a good time to write this now for me and Tom and for our families. The kids are mostly a bit older and they understand a fair bit about what has occurred; the knowledge can help them now, not hurt them. Plus both of us have the perspective now to be able to cope with the hard truths about how things have gone for us, especially for Tom. It's very hard to look at yourself like that.

But there's no attempt in this book to address the wider issues you're mentioning here, it's not that sort of book, it's personal and not an attempt to tell the history of drug abuse in surfing or whatever, sling blame around, or imagine some sort of other future where some other surfer did this that or the other. So I wouldn't be looking to it for any of that. Maybe that's what will interest you out of it, but that's you, not me.

ron, I don't regret it but I am anxious that the book be read, I don't like the sense that it's already been Tabloided into a corner because I don't feel it is Celebrity Redemption Porn, it wasn't written that way and I feel a bit weary about the idea that it'll be put in that box.

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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by Nick Carroll » Tue Oct 29, 2013 3:56 pm

Mike Stewart, because pretty much every surfer can eat his dust.

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Shaunm
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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by Shaunm » Tue Oct 29, 2013 4:05 pm

Coops wrote:
Shaunm wrote:Was a good story esp for 60mins
How you doing, shaunm?
Hey there! Doing ok now. Finished all the treatments and all good last 2 yrs. how you doing ?
Never confuse ambition with ability

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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by andy2476 » Tue Oct 29, 2013 6:30 pm

well that's good enough for me. if there's one person I want literature recommendations from its a caricignomic barren ginger McMansion dwelling TAFE janitor.
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#goteamiggy

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Kunji
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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by Kunji » Tue Oct 29, 2013 6:38 pm

Nick Carroll wrote:Mike Stewart, because pretty much every surfer can eat his dust.
Im buying the Carrolls book! :B
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Kunji
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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by Kunji » Tue Oct 29, 2013 6:46 pm

Shaunm wrote:
Coops wrote:
Shaunm wrote:Was a good story esp for 60mins
How you doing, shaunm?
Hey there! Doing ok now. Finished all the treatments and all good last 2 yrs. how you doing ?
Good mate, glad to hear things are getting better. Ask Trev for the keys to the dungeon! :lol:
------------
BA (on Realsurf) wrote: It's the wild west with a bit more homo-eroticism.

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Karlos
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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by Karlos » Tue Oct 29, 2013 6:48 pm

OK Google ain't no help so, what the fcuk does caricignomic mean?

alakaboo
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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by alakaboo » Tue Oct 29, 2013 8:22 pm

A peculiar form of penile cancer that causes small gnome-shaped lumps to form on the glans

daryl
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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by daryl » Tue Oct 29, 2013 8:25 pm

Karlos wrote:OK Google ain't no help so, what the fcuk does caricignomic mean?
Gnome carcinoma :|

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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by rmb » Tue Oct 29, 2013 8:57 pm

Nick a few days after since the story has aired how have yourself, Tom and family found the response not just here but from peers within your community? Obviously it's in the book but being on national TV is something else.

Now Nick that you have observed first hand the damage that crystal meth does and your brother has been able to regain control of the situation have you taken any consideration into trying to remove that scumbag dealer from the equation via lawful ways or other.

I know you cant blame the dealer for ones addiction but they are poisoning communities by being a link in the supply chain.

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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by daryl » Tue Oct 29, 2013 9:57 pm

Scumbags not just dealers, supply line racketeers. Libs must have their own replacements for the likes of Obeid and their suckers

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godsavetheking
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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by godsavetheking » Wed Oct 30, 2013 7:25 am

Excuse the gaucheness of the question Nick, but is your brother properly, actually famous in Australia? You know, like famous outside of the surf community?
Beanpole wrote:
Mon Sep 04, 2023 10:48 pm
To tell the truth eggs are one thing I avoid buying when I’m grocery shopping. So you may say I’m an intermittent egg buyer who usually lets someone else buy them.

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pinhead
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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by pinhead » Wed Oct 30, 2013 8:22 am

Shearer has raised some interesting points, but the elephant in the room is the SUP riding.
You must have seen him dabbling with those things. Why did you not intervene?

The message I got from the 60 minutes piece was that it's ok to ride SUPs

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Re: Ask Carroll

Post by Nick Carroll » Wed Oct 30, 2013 11:08 am

rmb wrote:Nick a few days after since the story has aired how have yourself, Tom and family found the response not just here but from peers within your community? Obviously it's in the book but being on national TV is something else.

Now Nick that you have observed first hand the damage that crystal meth does and your brother has been able to regain control of the situation have you taken any consideration into trying to remove that scumbag dealer from the equation via lawful ways or other.

I know you cant blame the dealer for ones addiction but they are poisoning communities by being a link in the supply chain.
Well everybody has been very nice about it. To my face anyway. But I wouldn't recommend it - you know, the whole drug addict brother apparent redemption followed by national TV appearance, yeah not to be taken lightly I tell ya. The family was pretty prepared for it so they all seem OK.

That particular dealer seems to have vanished of his own accord. They get into trouble all on their own, those guys. He's not my business.

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